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**Lou Newton** · March 11, 2020, 12:29 AM

Glen B Smith
To:lou newton

Tue, Mar 10 at 10:19 PM
Recently, I disagreed with your identification of the sons of God in Genesis 6 as being fallen angels. My point was that angels and sons of God were different spiritual beings and angels could not marry; i.e. have sexual intercourse. Here is a Southern Seminary professor that identifies the sons of God in Genesis 6 with the fallen angels who could reproduce with the daughters of men. He makes a compelling argument why the position I represented is not correct. His understanding of the Nephilim also seems a proper interpretation.

Were the sons of God in Genesis 6 fallen angels? Who were the Nephilim?

Were the sons of God in Genesis 6 fallen angels? Who were the Nephilim?

Watch more episodes of Honest Answers here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?lis...oQvS7wtiUgvF5j...

**Lou Newton** · March 11, 2020, 12:40 AM

Glen B Smith
To:Lou Newton

Tue, Mar 10 at 10:45 PM
This is a reply by Michael Heiser to Peter Gentry ( video referenced in the previous email.

Original Post:

Several people have sent me a link to a video made by Dr. Peter Gentry about the Nephilim. Many of you will know that I know (and like) Peter. He’s a serious biblical scholar and good guy all around. You should all read his work. You’d learn something for sure. I have and do.

Peter accepts the supernatural view of the sons of God but is troubled by the matter of the Nephilim (taking them as giants at face value; i.e., as quasi-divine offspring). He doesn’t like the idea that they were the giant offspring of the sons of God. In an effort to put forth this objection, he argues that Peter and Jude don’t specifically mention the Nephilim in their “angels that sinned” comments (2 Pet 2:4; Jude 6). He presumes the absence of the Nephilim in Peter and Jude somehow warrants rejecting the giant offspring in Genesis 6.

I enjoy Peter, but this is an amazingly weak argument, especially coming from him. The reason is simple and straightforward: That a NT writer doesn’t give us all the details of an OT passage they cite or allude to does NOT mean that we are supposed to reject the parts in the OT passage that aren’t mentioned. In many (most?) instances where NT writers cite an OT passage they don’t do so with absolute, exhaustive precision. They cite part, or perhaps cite from memory, or a different text, or combine part of a passage with another part of a different passage, etc. Peter knows this well, as he is an expert on the use of the OT by NT writers. So it makes little sense to me why he would employ a method for Peter and Jude that would get him in serious trouble elsewhere.

As an example, take Jesus’s citation (via Luke) of Isaiah 61:1-2 in Luke 4:18-19. If you compare the two passages, one can see that Jesus / Luke omits this line from Luke 61:1:

“he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted”

Are we to conclude that we are free to disregard this part of the OT verse because the NT writer doesn’t include it? Of course not.

Another example, even more germane. Hebrews 11:17-19 reads as follows:

¹⁷By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, ¹⁸of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” ¹⁹He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

This is the NT writer’s allusive citation of Genesis 22. But (O dear!) the writer of Hebrews doesn’t include the lines about the intervention of the angel of the Lord (Gen 22:10-12). Are we to conclude that there was no “real” angel on the scene when Abraham was prepared to offer Isaac? If we use Peter Gentry’s method, it would seem so.

I could cite numerous other analogous examples of how Peter’s approach and its underlying assumption aren’t workable. I presume you all get the point.

The issue here is that Peter apparently thinks he has an argument against taking the Nephilim portion of Gen 6:4 at face value because Peter and Jude don’t include it in their description of the angels’ sin. This isn’t coherent. My response is that (a) the NT frequently doesn’t cite an OT passage with complete precision, and (b) employing this approach yields some demonstrably poor results in other places.

My guess is that Peter is just uncomfortable with quasi-divine Nephilim, perhaps because he can’t explain that to himself or someone else. I understand completely. He’s not alone there. But it’s time we face the reality of the biblical text in this regard. We also can’t (biologically) explain the incarnation (how God became man in Jesus), or the hypostatic union (how Jesus was 100% God and 100% man at the same time), or how we are filled with the Holy Spirit, or how the death of Jesus affects not only our sin, but the entire cosmos (Col 1:16-20). To be blunt, most of what the Bible affirms that is core to our faith cannot be explained in any scientific, materialist way. That doesn’t mean it isn’t intellectually coherent. These ideas are coherent, not because they conform to biology or any other science, but because they extend from theism itself (e.g., Is there a God? If so, can that God do anything? If he can, could that God create beings like himself who, like him, could assume flesh? Note that there is no scriptural statement in Scripture that forbids this ability to lesser spiritual beings). Theism is demonstrably coherent in terms of logical analysis. That’s been born out by millennia of discussion. When the supernatural invades the natural, such things need to be weighed in light of the coherence of biblical theism. We do not need to abandon what the text says.

this can be found ar

Peter Gentry on the Nephilim - Dr. Michael Heiser

Peter Gentry on the Nephilim - Dr. Michael Heiser

Addendum to Peter Gentry on the Nephilim, December 13, 2019 – MSH I’m tempted to just tell readers to ignore wha...

**Lou Newton** · March 11, 2020, 12:43 AM

Glen B Smith
To:Lou Newton

Tue, Mar 10 at 10:49 PM
If you watched the video and read the 2nd email you might wish to read this reply which is the same link provided.
This is an excellent debate between scholars that provides direction and insight for the rest of us Bible students.

Peter Gentry on the Nephilim - Dr. Michael Heiser

Peter Gentry on the Nephilim - Dr. Michael Heiser

Addendum to Peter Gentry on the Nephilim, December 13, 2019 – MSH I’m tempted to just tell readers to ignore wha...

**Lou Newton** · January 11, 2021, 12:43 PM

Paul .............
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So why are the sons of God in Genesis 6 angels? Please run that past me again?

First ;God says sons of God and daughters of men. Not sons of God and daughters of God, or sons of men and daughters of men. God never says anything without a reason. The sons of God are NOT sons of men, but only sons of God.

Second, right after God tells about these sons of God having sex with the daughters of men, He says He is going to destroy all life on the earth.

6 When human beings began to increase in number on the earth and daughters were born to them, 2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. 3 Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years.”

Men were not forbidden to marry women, but God told them to marry and have children. There had to be a terrible sin for God to destroy life on the earth. That sin was Satan deceived many of the fallen angels, who followed him ,to have sex with women. The fallen angels were unredeemable. Man can be redeemed for hating God because he does not know God. Man can come to know God and therefore come to love God and be redeemed. The fallen angles knew God and yet hated him. Nothing can be done to save them. They hate God even though they know Him.

The whole human race was close to being made unredeemable by mixing with fallen angels. Their offspring were part fallen angel, and so unredeemable. Satan was close to having victory by ruining the whole human race. God saved the human race by destroying those who were part human and part fallen angel. He also put the fallen angles who did this into chains - Jude 1:6 And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling—these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great Day.

Genesis 6:9 KJV - These are the generations of Noah: Noah was a just man and perfect in his generations, and Noah walked with God. - Noah's clan was the only group on the earth that had not done this and so God saved them from the flood and started the human race again with Noah.

Men have mixed with very sinful women and God did not destroy life on earth because of their sin. But when fallen angels mixed with women and their offspring was not able to be redeemed, God had to destroy them to keep them from ruining the whole human race. If every human was part fallen angel there would be no woman for Him to be born of; and for Him to become a man to shed His blood to save us.

This is the same deception Satan will use before Jesus returns. Jesus said it will be as in the days of Noah. Satan will try to make the human race trans-human by deceiving men into changing their DNA into something not totally human. I see the Covid vaccine that changes our DNA as a possible first step to this.

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Who were the sons of God in Genesis 6:3 ?

Who were the sons of God in Genesis 6:3 ?

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